Wired rating

Wired

Tired

Premium pricing

12 month warranty

Short wait for modular design,

Price

£499

How much money do you make?

This may seem an impertinent question, but it is relevant. Why?
Because if you cannot afford to spend £500 on a pair of earphones this
review is not for you. Worst still, if you are the kind of person
who wishes they could spend £500 on a pair of earphones stop now,
because you're going to wish you could even more.

It is hard to know where to start when reviewing a product that
is at least 10x the price of what people typically pay. In fact
that's being generous. Typically people use the dirt-cheap
earphones that come with their phone/MP3 player, which
means the ACS T2 is closer to 200x their manufacturing cost. I'm
sure you'll concede that a £500 pair of earphones is likely to be
better than what came in the box, but that much better? Yes, and
I'll tell you why.

When you buy a pair of ACS earphones the first thing you've
bought is an appointment. ACS makes three flagship T Series
products: the single driver T3 (£249), dual driver T2 (£499) and
£649 triple driver T1 (yes -- the T2 is midrange) and all are custom moulded. Included in their price is a trip to your local
audiologist (ACS provides a nationwide map) to have impressions taken of your ears. These
moulds are sent to ACS and within two weeks your IEMs (in-ear
monitors), to use the correct terminology, will be ready.

The moulding isn't the only bespoke part of the process. Along
the way you'll be asked what colour you'd like your T2s to be.
Black, blue, red, purple, yellow or clear are standard, but almost
any shade can be done and finished with a laser etched symbol or letters of your choice. In addition
buyers can specify the length of cable they'd like their T2s to
have and where it is positioned. This can be exiting at the bottom
of the ear like typical earphones or at the top so it feeds behind
the ears. Even the cable itself is out of the ordinary being
reinforced with Kevlar for added
durability and an anti-friction finish stops acoustic interference
when brushing against zips and buttons on clothes.

Your £499 hasn't finished there. Each pair of T2s also comes
with a personally inscribed hard shell case and a soft leather
carry pouch. That said the real payback doesn't come in the
goodies, but in the performance of the T2s themselves.

The first thing you'll notice is the fit. Unlike most third
party custom moulds, T2s don't just fit the ear canal -- they fit the whole ear. This makes initial
insertion tricky, but there is a knack to it. Twist each IEM into
the ear anti-clockwise and with a bit of practice putting in both
takes seconds. ACS uses medical grade "40 shore silicon" rather than plastic so the
monitors are flexible to allow for jaw movement and heat quickly to
body temperature. The result is an incredible seal which blocks up
to 27db of environmental noise. This is higher than most professional
grade earplugs giving them a handy secondary function even when you
aren't feeling musical.

The other significant benefit to a full ear mould is the speaker
is held within the ear rather than sticking out like a standard
earphone. Consequently T2s finish flush to the ear so you can wear
them while resting your head to the side -- a useful benefit on
long trips. When combined with their ability to block out nearby
conversations and crying children you'll never look at regular
earphones the same way again.

You'll also never look at regular earphones the same way again
once you start the music. What the painstakingly crafted moulds and
their 27db seal create is a platform for ACS to unload a wall of
sound. The effect is akin to sitting in an Imax with bass, guitars, drums and vocals flying at you from
all angles. The Prodigy's Invaders Must Die has never
sounded more rampaging.

This isn't to say the T2s are brutish, with a frequency response
of 16Hz to 20KHz you'll discover the minutia within music tracks.
My personal revelation was the off mic conversations picked up
between tracks on Radiohead's The Bends. The effect is as
if Shure's bass-centric SE535 and Etymotic's precise ER4 had a
secret love child.

What a love child it is. In reviewing audio equipment I am lucky
enough to have an array of high end earphones and have previously
favoured specific makers for different music: Shure for rock and
blues, Etymotic for classical and acoustic, Sennheiser for dance
and drum and bass. The enlarged custom moulds certainly mean ACS
isn't fighting from a level plane, but who said the fight should be
fair? Even partial custom moulds (tips -- which ACS offers for any
make of earphone) cost £90 and the SE535 has an RRP of £478.98.
Since the T2s arrived they haven't left my ears for anything other
than comparative testing.

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